COST and the European Science Foundation (ESF) have been informed by the European Commission Directorate-General for Research & Innovation of their decision to allocate an additional EUR 10 million to COST.

This latest allocation raises the total budget for COST to EUR 250 million which was the maximum initially envisaged by the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) subject to a mid-term evaluation.

In 2010, the evaluation Expert Panel strongly recommended “that the appropriate process be put in place to allocate the additional EUR 40 million reserved in FP7 for COST”.

In April 2011, the European Commission already invested an additional EUR 30 million. The European Commission’s budget situation now allowed confirming the complementary EUR 10 million.

COST implements networking activities for researchers, contributing to the European Research Area (ERA) goals and participating in the delivery of the Europe 2020 agenda.

“This further increase in the COST budget reveals the European Commission’s trust in our intergovernmental framework’s ability to build excellence-driven networks by connecting high-quality scientific communities through a bottom-up inclusive approach throughout Europe and worldwide. With these additional funds, COST will continue to invest in science and technology activities, thus reinforcing COST’s contribution to Europe’s research and innovation capacities by favouring trans-domain multidisciplinary networks and integrating the talent of the next generations,” comments Dr Ángeles Rodríguez-Peña, President of the COST Committee of Senior Officials (CSO).

“The ESF, as implementing agent for COST and the beneficiary of the COST II grant agreement with the European Commission, has indeed been asked to consider the additional annual financing of EUR 13.4 million when submitting the annual Work Programme from now on. We are already preparing the respective annual Amendment 2012 for a total of EUR 43.3 million in cooperation with the CSO and aim for a smooth approval process in June 2012,” adds Martin Hynes, Chief Executive of ESF.

“We are grateful that the ESF with the COST Office will continue to support us in achieving COST’s strategic goals and its shared values of excellence, integrity, commitment and teamwork,” concludes Dr Rodríguez-Peña.